The Knoxville School Board discussed the potential impacts of legislative bills at their regular meeting Monday.

The board was able to receive a look at current bills that focus on education in Iowa and how they could affect local school districts. Knoxville Superintendent Cassi Pearson says there are well over 100 bills in Iowa that focus on education and she believes the most important bill for school districts is state supplemental aid (SSA), which is the percent increase of per pupil funding which is associated with cost of living increase. SSA helps school districts offset costs with rising inflation. Pearson says the district is disappointed in the proposed SSA increase in this legislative session.

“The Governor announced a 2% increase when she gave her speech and the senate has come out with a 1.75% SSA and the house hasn’t come out with anything yet. To be honest we were really disappointed with that because as everyone knows inflation over the last year has been much greater than that so all of our costs are going up and the money we would get per pupil is actually very minimal.”

The senate proposed amount would be the lowest SSA percentage since 2011.